Hitchhikers
by Flanna
Summary: Jonathan's bound for Mexico with a broken-up Andrew in tow.


Title: Hitchhikers  
  
Author: Flannery  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Pairing: hints of Jonathan/Andrew -- interpret it as you wish.  
  
Disclaimer: Joss created these kids, and it was A Good Thing. The only potential profit I receive is to my ego.   
  
Author's Notes: I luuurve the feedback -- give it! Also, I'm pretty sure you're all caught up, but just in case, there are spoilers for the end of Season Six. Written for the BuffySlashTarotTales mailing list. This was inspired by this week's card, the Six of Swords: "...a card symbolizing the rite of passage. A change is coming, for better or for worse, from struggle to serenity, or vice versa. This will occur after you come to some sort of realization about a problem or question you face. This may be an indicator that you'll be taking some kind of journey, physically or emotionally or metaphorically. The appearance of this card also reminds us that life works on a cycle. What goes around comes around."  
  
* * *  
  
Headlights slowed, focused on the two boys at the side of the road, then sped on with renewed purpose.   
  
"Hope you crash," muttered Jonathan for perhaps the tenth time that night.  
  
Jonathan was so tired. Tired of walking, tired of running, tired of Andrew clinging to his arm like a lost child. Jonathan realizes that if he were to shrug off Andrew's grasp, the kid would probably wander out onto the empty highway or off into the endless desert.  
  
The thought was tempting.  
  
He'd always imagined that he'd like to be a leader, like to have people look up to him, but now that he'd been thrust into the role Jonathan decided he didn't like it at all. He didn't know where he was supposed to lead Andrew. He wasn't sure he could keep himself safe, let alone someone else.   
  
He hated the entire situation.  
  
Jonathan cleared his throat. Andrew wandered on beside him, eyes straight down in a blank sort of trance.  
  
"How're you doing, Andrew?"  
  
Seconds of waiting. Finally, the question sunk in. "Fine," answered Andrew in a raw voice.  
  
"Look," said Jonathan in what he hoped sounded firm and not at all uncertain, "we'll get through this."  
  
Andrew gripped his arm tighter and made a soft mewling noise.  
  
"It's just us now," he said reassuringly. "We'll get through this."  
  
"Just us," echoed Andrew.  
  
Lights cracked the horizon. The car passed in the northbound lane.  
  
As long as Andrew was this deep in shock, Jonathan had to try double to hold himself together. It wouldn't do to have both of them fall apart at the same time. Jonathan's grief for his lost security can wait until after they get wherever it is they're going.  
  
The last time Andrew had uttered a complete sentence was somewhere outside Sunnydale. Safe in the cab of a freight-hauling truck, they were both able to absorb the fact that even though they'd escaped death, their lives had been all but obliterated.   
  
Jonathan scowled inwardly. Willow had managed to make their world explode after all.   
  
Andrew had slept on his shoulder as they were driven away from their home. After a brief stop in Los Angeles, the truck driver had demanded that "the pretty blond one" pay for the ride with his mouth. Andrew had been so out of it that he would've done it, had Jonathan not refused to allow his friend to be taken advantage of.   
  
"Let the kid answer for himself!" The man had spat at him. When it became clear that neither would be performing illicit acts on him, he dumped the pair outside Temecula.  
  
And after all he'd been through, Jonathan was most afraid in that moment. Witches with fireballs and evil spells -- it's kind of beyond the spectrum of believability, isn't it? But being snarled at by a large, strange man in a large, strange place with nowhere to run... that's truly frightening. Thinking back on it made Jonathan's skin crawl.  
  
He didn't notice the car approach until it was right beside him. The driver, through a rolled-down window, asked where Jonathan was headed.  
  
"Anywhere," he replied, "anywhere you can take us."  
  
Jonathan took the front seat, while Andrew slipped quietly into the back.  
  
"Are you college students?" The driver asked.  
  
Jonathan shook his head. Andrew was sprawled across the back-seat, staring at the car's gray ceiling; he didn't respond.  
  
"We're, uh..." He spent a moment thinking. "We're off for the summer."  
  
"Ah," said the woman. "And is he your..."  
  
"Brother," answered Jonathan.  
  
She paused for a moment, the sort of pause one indulges in when one wants to ask a question of a particularly personal nature. Then: "Is he... all right?"  
  
Andrew was silent. Jonathan turned and looked at him; "He's... been through some trauma, recently."  
  
"Oh," said the woman.  
  
"Just -- " Jonathan choked. "Just earlier today."  
  
The driver looked warily at Jonathan. "You're not... not fugitives, are you?" She punctuated the question with an uneasy grin that lasted only a second before fading.  
  
"No," answered Jonathan. He could hear Andrew shifting in the back-seat. "We're refugees," Jonathan told her.  
  
The woman nodded silently, pondering this. She continued driving.  
  
"War..." came a rasp from the back-seat, "Warren..."  
  
It was followed by muffled, uneven breathing from a mouth pressed against a dirty sleeve.  
  
She cleared her throat, obviously unnerved by the boy in the back-seat. "I'm going to San Diego," she said. "My sister's there, and her kids. I'm staying with them until my divorce is final."  
  
"I'm sorry," said Jonathan. He added a moment later: "I mean, about the divorce."  
  
She shrugged, flashed a polite smile toward him. "Yeah, well, it is a bit devastating, but," she said thoughtfully, as she was at that time surrounded by two boys much worse off in life, "I suppose it isn't so bad." It was time for a drastic subject change. "Do you know where you're going?"  
  
Jonathan answered honestly. "No." Then he said, "Mexico. We're going to Mexico."  
  
"Well, I can take you as far as San Diego."  
  
"That would be great," said Jonathan. "Thank you."  
  
She looked at Jonathan again, who was looking back at her with a warm and open expression. Being the first kind person he'd seen all night, he decided he was quite fond of the woman, and much too worn to keep up his defenses.   
  
"I don't normally pick up hitchhikers." Something about her demeanor softened. "But I couldn't just leave two -- " Boys, she wanted to say. They looked too young to be out so late, to be out alone. " -- two young men on the side of the road in the middle of the night."  
  
Jonathan didn't respond. He could feel a lump of emotion at the back of his throat and didn't want to start crying, didn't want to allow a breakdown.  
  
"Besides," she said, "it's been a long drive, and the company is nice."  
  
Awkward silence fell around the car. It was only broken by the rare sound of a car passing in the northbound lane, and the soft, continuous sound of Andrew's misery.  
  
Jonathan bit his lip. "Hey," he asked, "think we can get any radio stations out here?"  
  
"Sure. We can try." She didn't bother trying to hide the discomfort in her voice. The driver turned the volume up so it drowned out the silent sobs from the back-seat. Every now and then, she glanced at Jonathan and he offered her a grateful smile.  
  
Jonathan liked the desert much more from the inside of a moving vehicle. It had a sparse, black type of beauty to it: mile after mile of the same dust, the same tenacious vegetation, seen only in the path carved by the headlights.   
  
The stars were so bright, the land so black, that Jonathan could almost believe they were traveling through space. Suddenly, a thought struck him, and he smiled.  
  
"Hey Andrew," he said gently, turning in his seat. "Did you remember your towel?"  
  
It was hard to see Andrew in the shroud of darkness. A car passed, and illuminated the shiny wet streaks on Andrew's face. Jonathan could see that Andrew was weakly smiling at him. "I've been thinking..." Andrew spoke barely above a whisper, as if he was afraid his voice would carry back to Sunnydale. "...and I think... I think things're gonna be fine," he said.  
  
Jonathan relaxed back into his seat. "Yeah, Andrew." He gazed out at the black sky, the Pollock-splatter of the stars. "Things are gonna be fine."  
  
* * * 


End file.
